Two faculty members in the Elon University School of Law explained Elon’s distinctive approach to legal education at a legal conference in Great Britain in January.
Steven Friedland, visiting professor of law, and Bonnie McAlister, executive coach in residence, presented at the “Learning and Law Annual Conference” at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. The conference hosted more than 100 professional legal educators from around the United Kingdom.
“This was a great opportunity for our law school, to be able to share some of things that we do with other legal educators. They were very receptive,” McAlister said.
Faculty members in the Elon Law School are creating a national model of engaged learning in legal education, providing more guidance, self-observation and engaged or hands-on learning than is typically found in law schools.
“The current approach in legal education is two-pronged: the teacher and the student,” Friedland said. 
“Under this orthodox approach, teachers deliver information and the students receive and are supposed to assimilate that knowledge. We try an essentially triangular method of legal education: teacher, students and learning, with learning being at the top of the pyramid. The question that is presented in this new model is this: Are the students learning and, if so, how do you know? The reason we use a particular teaching method isn’t because we like it but because it is going to help students learn better.”
Conference organizers thanked Friedland and McAlister for their participation and invited them to present at the conference again next year.